


The Exorcist

by orphan_account



Category: Assassin's Creed
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Possession, idk lmao, shaun doesn't want to lose desmond
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-10
Updated: 2016-06-18
Packaged: 2018-07-14 03:59:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7152170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the run-up to the apocalypse, Juno enters and corrupts the Animus before taking over Desmond's body and causing havoc. The countdown to 12/21/12 is on, and the Assassins need Desmond back if they're going to save the world. For Shaun, especially, that's not the only reason he needs Desmond back.</p><p>As if he didn't have enough problems already.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. haha oops

The day started off normally enough.

After a sleepless night of research Shaun had been tired and fed up, sick of trawling through Revolutionary War history. Names and dates were swimming in front of his eyes as he added a new entry into the Animus database. He wondered, briefly, if Desmond even read the bloody things. He thought it unlikely, as Desmond usually showed minimal interest in any history that wasn't completely essential. Damn - he'd written so many snarky comments.  
He'd never, ever admit it, but Shaun did actually take pains to try and make the database entries more funny and interesting, more digestible for someone whose idea of a history lesson was the life story of his ex.

Shaun sighed and checked his watch. 5am. It was impossible to gauge the time without it, and the complete lack of natural light in the Grand Temple was making him itch. Since Desmond's arrival fresh from Abstergo it had been one dingy basement after another, working all day on profiling historical figures with the occasional trip outside. Truth be told, Shaun had always had a healthy distaste for the outdoors but now that he was restricted to a corner of an underground cavern - _again_ \- he couldn't help but feel restless.

 

The others were waking up now. Rebecca crawled out of her sleeping bag on the hard ground and stretched, reaching out to slap Desmond awake. He'd been talking and moaning in his sleep all night, with the occasional chilling scream, for weeks now and it showed in the bags under Rebecca's eyes. Nobody blamed him, of course, but it did mean that their tempers were all a bit shorter than they would have been otherwise.

With Desmond blearily sitting up and rubbing his eyes and Rebecca adjusting her various electronic tools, Shaun decided it was time for breakfast. William joined them from wherever he had been pacing and they ate their pathetic breakfast of a packet of crisps and a bottle of water each in relative silence, all too tired or brooding to make conversation.

"Alright, Desmond", said William, crushing his empty crisp packet and standing up brusquely. "Time to get started."  
"Uh huh", Desmond replied, brushing crumbs from his jeans. "Lemme check my email first and then I'll get in."

Shaun went back to his usual spot near the glowing blue gate and had just opened 'Common Sense' by Thomas Paine when his laptop bleeped with a new email. It was from Desmond, who forwarded it from Juno. The usual incomprehensible stuff about how she hated humanity, blah blah blah, but there was one particularly interesting phrase at the bottom: _found a way through found a way in you will be my instrument you will be my my vessel_

Shaun adjusted his glasses and read it again, feeling a sense of foreboding wash over him. The sentence wasn't quite consistent with the previous emails from Juno, this one seemed more... ominous. Shaun read it twice more, then looked at _found a way in_ and glanced over at the Animus, the beginning of a suspicion forming.

Desmond had just sat down in the Animus when Shaun cried "Desmond, wait!" He started running towards the corner where the Animus was set up.  
But it was too late. He didn't respond, and Shaun could tell he was already in the white room.  
"What is it, Shaun?" William demanded as Shaun ran past him towards the unconscious Desmond. Rebecca came over from where she had been crouching over her equipment and remarked anxiously, "His vitals are fluctuating. I don't know what's happening." They watched as his heart rate and brain activity increased dramatically.

"Shaun, what's wrong with him?" asked William urgently. Shaun didn't really have an answer for that, and said, "Rebecca, get him out. Now."  
As Rebecca keyed a command into the Animus, a blue spark leaped out and she jumped back. "It burned me!" she exclaimed, clutching her fingers.

"What?" demanded Shaun in disbelief. "Can you turn the Animus off?"  
Rebecca shook her head vehemently, desperately trying to tap commands into the interface. "We can't. Not if we want Desmond to be a vegetable for the rest of his life. Switching off the Animus during a session is one rule I refuse to break - if we do, it's instant and devastating Bleeding Effect."

"Shaun, you tried to stop him getting into the Animus", William growled. "Why?"

"I-" Shaun was spared replying because Desmond's body began to jerk uncontrollably, his head thrashing from side to side as though he was fighting an internal battle. Shaun, Rebecca and William watched in horror as blue sparks flickered around him and his fingers clawed at the Animus seat as he writhed. Once or twice his eyes opened, and Shaun could have sworn they focused on him for an instant before squeezing shut again.  
Then he went disturbingly still, his eyes rolled back into his head with the whites visible between trembling lids.

"...Holy shit", said Shaun. "Rebecca-"  
"Vitals now stable", Rebecca said grimly.

Desmond's eyes rolled back to normal and opened and he sat up slowly, wordless. He casually swung his legs off the Animus and sat facing them, and Shaun saw with a thrill of shock that the irises of his eyes had changed from dark brown to an intense, glowing blue.

"Desmond?", said Shaun into the shocked silence. 

Desmond's eyes flicked to his and he smiled, a cold and terrifying stretch of the lips that was worlds apart from his old easy smirk. It looked wrong on his face, and even before he spoke Shaun knew for certain that this wasn't Desmond anymore.

"You're smart, for a human", said Juno, the sadistic smile still curving Desmond’s lips. "Haven't you figured it out yet?"


	2. things deteriorate quickly

"Shaun, what's going on?" demanded William, breaking the silence. "Desmond-"  
"That's not Desmond", said Shaun, glaring at Juno.

"Correct", replied Juno coolly. Desmond's accent and speech inflections were gone, replaced with something decidedly foreign.  
"Once I managed to communicate with Desmond Miles via his email network, it was a simple thing to find my way into your primitive machine. The only problem was whether I could bring myself to... _inhabit_ the body of a vile, base animal. This vessel is limited, but it will serve my purposes. However much it disgusts me."  
" _Primitive machine?_ " echoed Rebecca, furious. "Juno, you'd better fuck off out of Desmond right this second, or-"

"Silence, child." Juno cut her off and turned to Shaun. "Instruct your female friend not to address me again. Now, you have found one power source, correct? In the city you call New York?"  
Shaun nodded, thinking he knew where this was going.  
"The second is far south of here, on the South American tectonic plate. Brazil. I will retrieve it so that we might restore energy to this Temple. I suggest we ride a plane from the Watertown International Airport to Rio de Janeiro-"  
"'Ride a plane'?" muttered Rebecca, and Juno shot her a filthy look.

"But how do you know all this? How do you know where the battery is and what flights to take?" Shaun asked, butting in.  
"If it's on your global computer network I have access to it, because of the manner in which I was entombed here. I can change my data into binary code-"  
"What about Desmond?" interrupted William, his tone deadly serious. "Where is my son?"

Shaun was suddenly and harshly reminded of Desmond's time in Animus Island, only a few short weeks ago. He couldn't be trapped there again, could he? Stuck in the inner workings of the Animus? He'd been so... shattered, so _broken_ in the days afterwards that Shaun hadn't ever wanted to see him like that again.

"Desmond Miles is perfectly all right", Juno answered calmly, turning her unsettling blue eyes on William. "I've put his consciousness into a state of slumber while I occupy his body-"  
"But why?" asked Shaun. "Why are you 'occupying his body?' What possible purpose does it serve?"  
"I wish only to ensure the survival of this world. I can only do that with an appropriate vessel, and the database I was preserved on was not enough to guarantee Earth's survival. With my guidance you will stop the apocalypse before it begins."

"O.K.", pressed Shaun, "But why? Why do you care what happens to the world? Your entire species is dead, and you loathe humanity. Why do you give a shit?"  
Juno managed to make Desmond's face look imperial - not an easy task.  
"I am Juno Moneta. I have watched over humanity since its birth. The name by which you know me, given to me by the Romans, means 'Juno who Warns', 'Juno who Reminds'... 'Juno who Instructs.' I have waited aeons to warn humanity of this oncoming doom. I have always cared deeply about the fate of this planet, and even if humanity are the current dominant species that will not change. Do not presume to question me again."

She brushed past Rebecca and headed for the tunnel that led outside, and Shaun noticed that she was more than a little bit wobbly on Desmond's feet. He left the shellshocked William and grouchy Rebecca in the temple and followed Juno, who had disappeared up the passage.

He found her near where Desmond had placed the Apple and gained entrance to the temple. She was reaching out and stroking the strange blue script on the walls, and Shaun thought he detected wistfulness in her expression. The writing lit up and glowed slightly at her touch and she traced her arm down in a line, leaving a fading trail of azure phosphorescence. Then she saw him coming and her face closed up - or was it Desmond's face? It was Juno's expression on Desmond's features, which was both weird and confusing to Shaun. He was having trouble wrapping his head around the fact that it was Juno in there, not Desmond, as the only indications were the strange eyes and how all of Desmond's signature speech and movement inflections were gone.  
She snapped her hand back from the ancient writing on the walls and stalked outside into the forested clearing where their van was parked.

Shaun caught up with her as she stood in the middle of the clearing. Her eyes were closed as she inhaled slowly, then exhaled.  
"It's been thousands of years since I breathed air", she said at last. "The gaseous structure has changed slightly, but it smells the same. And trees... I missed trees. You humans are fond of your trees, there are so many of them now." She gazed at the dark evergreens around them, with the dawn light falling on the branches as they silhouetted the sunrise. A cold breeze was making the branches sway gently. "We had other, more sophisticated ways of oxygen production, but I had always a fondness for the trees..." she said softly.

She seemed to realise she was babbling slightly and became more businesslike.

"Gather your people and equipment, make sure the airport humans know we are coming, whatever you need to do", she said. "We are going to Brazil. Now."  
She opened the van door and got in. "There is no use in delaying. We will depart as soon as you have retrieved what you need."

Indignant at being bossed around by little more than the remnant of a dead species, Shaun turned and went back into the cave, leaving her to look at her stupid trees.

Back in the cave, Rebecca was typing away at the Animus with a frustrated look on her face and William had his head in his hands.

"She's waiting in the van for us to head to Brazil", said Shaun, bemused. "This has to be one of the weirdest-"  
Rebecca shook her head at him, eyes wide, and motioned to William.  
Desmond's father was sitting on a rock on the temple floor, looking despondent. His shoulders were slumped and his hand covered his eyes.  
"I don't think he knows what to do anymore", whispered Rebecca to Shaun. "He's having trouble adjusting."

"We need to figure out what we're going to do about this", Shaun told him. He looked up, and seemed to try and pull himself together.  
"...I know that. But can Juno really help us? How do we know we can trust her?"

"True", said Rebecca. "I'm, like, 60% sure she has an ulterior motive for all this."

"I think so too", said Shaun. "I think we should get her out of Des and do this on our own. We can save the world without her, and we need Desmond for that."

"But how do we get her out?" asked William earnestly, steepling his hands.

"Any ideas, Rebecca?" said Shaun.  
"Sorry, Shaun, but extracting an ancient goddess from my best friend isn't really my area of expertise. Computers, coding, yeah. Dealing with Juno... 'fraid not."  
"Okay, okay. We'll have to figure it out. I think, for now, we should let her help us."  
"But what about Desmond?" interjected William. "Shaun, we can't trust anything she says-"  
"What feasible choice do we have, William? Unless you can come up with a way to get rid of her, we have no other option!"

William looked as though we were about to argue, then relented. "Fine. Fine. We'll just do as she says. Let her take the reins. Put the fate of the world in the hands of an unstable collection of data who happens to hate humanity." He threw his hands in the air and stalked over to Shaun's computer.  
"What are you doing?" called Shaun, exasperated.  
"I'm booking plane tickets. She said to go to Brazil, didn't she?" Tight-lipped, William clicked away, lit by the blue portal's hazy glow. The otherworldly light cast shadows across his face, making him look older and more tired.

Rebecca crouched down and started gathering her equipment. "Shaun, you should check on Juno. I'll get your books and stuff. I'm just worried about leaving her alone with the van."  
She was right, of course, so Shaun made his way back up the wide tunnel, out the cave entrance and into the dull morning light. To his relief, the van was still there. He approached the passenger side where Juno was sitting with arms folded, staring blankly out at the quiet woods.

"I forgot that the Miles boy had the sixth sense", she said as he came up to her. "Eagle vision, as you call it. I was against the crossbreeding, giving the gift of the sense to the humans. I didn't want to share a characteristic of our kind with the base creatures who had killed my father. But the council had decided, and so it was. My arguments were useless against those human-loving idiots... Minerva, Tinia... How ironic that I am now seeing with the sixth sense of a crossbreed descendant - using the skill that I didn't want the humans to have, through a human."  
She looked up at Shaun, and the unnatural blue that her consciousness had given Desmond's brown eyes was now suffused with eagle vision gold.  
"Also strange", she continued, "is that you appear blue, instead of having no colour as I expected. Desmond Miles sees you and the female as his only true allies. Interesting that he does not trust the father." The gold flecks faded from her eyes and they turned back to solid blue, the same colour as the temple's gate and the writing on the walls.

Shaun, taken aback by her unexpected oversharing, said nothing.

"But it is no matter", said Juno, sighing. "Are your companions prepared to leave yet?"  
"Should be ready soon enough", said Shaun, turning back to glance at the cave entrance, from which Rebecca emerged ten minutes later, weighed down with her gear. She dumped it in the back of the van and got into the driver's seat. "William pulled a few strings and got us plane tickets to Rio", she said. "The plane leaves in a few hours." 

"Good." said Juno. "We must get to Rio posthaste."  
"Posthaste?" Rebecca snorted.  
"Listen, you primitive whelp", Juno snarled. "I did not endure countless centuries in solitude to be mocked by an ignorant ape on the finer points of your ridiculous language. Do you really wish to test me when I am the only hope for-"  
"Oh shut up, Juno", retorted Rebecca. "We can do this without your dumb guidance. We're only humouring you because we don't know how to get you out of Desmond, so stop being so superior. You're just the shell of a long-dead woman, who was clearly a crazy bi-"  
"Rebecca..." Shaun said, his tone warning.  
"You humans", Juno responded heatedly. "You have no idea what's coming. I refuse to try and educate you on how ungrateful you are, although I will say that I take control of your idiotic friend after spending aeons waiting for his birth and start guiding you towards your salvation in the most efficient way possible, and all you can do is deride my manner of surviving and of speaking because you feel threatened. You think I care about your insignificant feelings? You think I care about your savage race-"

She cut herself off suddenly, disconcerted.  
"What was that, Juno?" said Shaun, smirking. "You don't care about our savage race, is that it? Then why the grand speech back in the temple? 'Do not presume to question me?' Well I intend on questioning you, because honestly your motives are shady and I don't trust you one bit. Oh, looks like William's here. Why don't you tell us more about where the power source is, eh Juno?" he asked as William got into the car with his iPad in hand. "Give us a bit more information, won't you?"  
Juno looked uncomfortable.  
"According to the World Wide Web, there is some sort of gladiator fight being staged tomorrow eve in the Brazil stadium. I am certain that the holder of the power source will be there. I tracked it down as soon as I realized that I could reach the World Wide Web almost a month ago."

Shaun could see that Rebecca was bursting with the need to poke fun at 'World Wide Web', but thankfully she focused on getting the van's engine running. The van trundled down the small forest trail that led to the cave and turned onto Seymour Road.

It was an hour's drive north-west to Watertown Airport. As they drove Shaun kept seeing signs for towns and villages in the area, and many of them had historical names. Ironically, the nearest town was called Turin, much like the shroud - which was almost certainly a Piece of Eden. They passed signs for towns called Carthage, Syracuse and his personal favourite, Pitcairn. It brought to mind all the effort he'd put into that particular database entry. "Maybe he had a lovely smile" - classic.

The hour journey was deeply awkward, with the three Assassins trying to adjust to Desmond's possession while Juno sat in staunch silence. Shaun tried to focus on an account of 1780's New York City, but he wasn't really seeing the words. He kept thinking not about the apocalypse, but about Desmond. Wondering if he was in any way conscious of what was going on, and wishing that he, Shaun, could have warned him about the corrupted Animus in time. It was strange, but Shaun had been in Desmond's company 24/7 for months now, and now that Desmond just wasn't there... Shaun missed him. It wasn't a feeling he would ever voice, but it felt so strange to be seeing and speaking with someone who looked just like Desmond, but simply wasn't him. It bothered Shaun that Juno had simply brushed his best friend's consciousness aside and taken over his body. He wondered if Desmond would feel violated when he woke up. 

When, not if. There was no way in hell Shaun was letting Juno stay in there any longer than absolutely necessary. There had to be a way to force her out.

Shaun thought about what Juno had said - that Desmond's eagle vision saw Shaun as blue because Desmond trusted him more than almost anyone else.  
Irritatingly, that had given him that warm fuzzy feeling that he so rarely experienced. Shaun hadn't thought Desmond liked him, let alone trusted him, and it was a testament to Desmond's character that he could trust anyone after Lucy's betrayal.  
Shaun knew he was being sentimental, but he couldn't stop thinking about how he'd made eye contact with Desmond while he'd been writhing around in the Animus 3.0, moments before Juno took over. It must have been his last moment of control over his own body, and Desmond had looked at Shaun.

Stop it, he told himself. He was being ridiculous.

They arrived at Watertown Airport at about seven a.m., and had an hour and a half to kill once they got through security. Despite all her ancient wisdom, Shaun had to guide Juno through security, because she couldn't understand why humans were so uptight about air travel. "Are you brutes really so underdeveloped that you don't trust each other?" she kept saying. Eventually Shaun had to grab her arm and steer her through the metal detector procedures, because she practically refused to co-operate and Rebecca and William refused to be any help. People kept giving him strange looks, arm-in-arm with another man. It was frustrating and irrationally embarrassing, and Juno's bemusement didn't make matters any better. Plus, Abstergo were searching for Desmond, so Juno had to keep her hood up, obscuring her face.

She wasn't doing very well with secrecy, though. She browsed the airport shop with a constant look of confusion and disgust written plain over Desmond's features. She picked up a teddy bear by one arm, said "Juvenile", and tossed it down before moving on and proceeding to lecture them about why the human monetary system was inherently dysfunctional. When Rebecca bought the three Assassins coffee, she wanted one too, and when Rebecca got her one she took a sip and pronounced it 'filthy'. Rebecca was smirking evilly, but Shaun and William were running out of patience.

Finally they boarded the plane, and Shaun had the bad luck to have to sit beside Juno. Bad luck, actually, clearly wasn't a factor in this, Shaun surmised. The fact that he had to sit beside Juno for the duration of the ten hour flight had Rebecca written all over it. It was obvious from the gleeful expression on her face. He was going to kill her when they landed.

The plan was to stop in Sao Paolo after ten hours, then take the one-hour flight to Rio. Once there, Juno would take the metro to the MMA stadium, retrieve the power source and return on the subway to where the Assassins would be waiting for evac. Then they'd be on the first flight back to New York.  
Shaun had his doubts as to whether Juno could pull it off. After all, she had been a diplomat in First Civ society, unused to physical exertion. Plus, she didn't have the Assassin skills that Desmond had learned from Ezio. She had eagle vision and was probably smarter than Desmond, but that was about it.  
Another thing to worry about was her confusion when it came to human society. She'd been holed up in an ancient temple for centuries and now she was about to enter a huge, packed stadium where the species she hated for their brutality were showing off their brute strength. Shaun didn't like the odds.

He voiced his doubts to her as the plane took off, but Juno waved him away. "I can handle it, human male. Don't insult me by assuming the Miles boy could do a better job."

Shaun figured he had no choice but to hope for the best. The Sao Paolo Assassin cell had gone dark to flush out a mole, so there was no help coming from them. They were on their own.

Shaun had always hated planes, so as soon as the plane was in the air he shut his eyes and tried to while away the hours by sleeping. Juno wasn't helping, because she kept staring out the window at the landscape below and making superior comments about how badly humans had treated the planet over the years. Finally she shut up, and Shaun drifted off to sleep for the first time in days.

It was dark when they landed in Sao Paolo, and it would be midnight before the Rio plane took off. Juno had finally lapsed into a more subdued mood and the Assassins were able to work on their respective workloads in silence, sitting in the terminal gate. Shaun, not wanting to be left to his own thoughts, started working on finding the last power source. Rebecca fiddled with the comm devices that would keep her in touch with Juno on the mission and William spent the time describing the day's events to the other operating cells via the Hephaestus email network. Juno simply stared out the floor-to-ceiling windows at the dusk, her expression unreadable. Looking at her, it occurred to Shaun that they were lucky passport control hadn't caught on that the brown eyes in Desmond's passport photo had changed to an impossible shade of blue.

Rebecca, thankfully, had pretty good Portuguese and ordered food for them at the airport café. Shaun was famished, having not eaten since his 5am packet of crisps, which felt like a million years ago. Juno picked at her food unenthusiastically, complaining that even for a human it was proletariat food.

They finally boarded the flight to Rio, which was an hour and twenty minutes. Shaun forced Rebecca to sit beside Juno once he was done ranting to her that she had left him at Juno's mercy for a full ten hours. Shaun and William sat in the row behind, listening grimly as Rebecca and Juno quickly started arguing.  
It wasn't usual Rebecca behaviour to be so confrontational, thought Shaun. Rebecca was so laid-back. Maybe it was her way of showing her anger at Juno for taking over Desmond.  
God knew she had a right to anger. They all did, for Desmond's sake.

The plane touched down in Rio and once they managed to smuggle Juno through security the Assassins got to work. They rented a van and Rebecca gave Juno the walkie-talkie on the car ride from the airport into Rio city. Shaun analysed the stadium layout and floor plan, deciding on the best route to take to avoid security once inside, and William sorted through intel from other cells detailing Abstergo airwave activity concerning the event. The MMA fight was at the HSBC Arena, so the group parked the van near a metro station and sat inside. Rebecca set up her gear and tested it, and once everything was ready they still had a day to kill before the event started. Juno curled up in the corner and dozed, and William restlessly tapped his iPad screen, shoulders hunched in a way that discouraged any attempts at conversation.

With nothing else to do, Shaun and Rebecca left them in the van and decided to wander the streets of Rio. Figuring that Abstergo didn't know who they were, they reckoned it was safe to leave the van, although Rebecca's jumpsuit was a bit too conspicuous so she changed into typical tourist clothes. Shaun took off his waistcoat and unbuttoned the collar of his shirt in the heat. Despite the fact that it was December, it was 24 degrees and he suspected his pasty English skin was getting very burnt.

They made their way to the beach and paddled for a while. Shaun rolled up his trousers and splashed around for a bit, feeling self-conscious and quite dim. Then Rebecca flicked water at him, so obviously he had to win the fight she'd initiated. Soaked, they lay on the crowded beach for a few minutes before getting the Metro back to the station where the van was parked. The first time Shaun had actually enjoyed himself in way, way too long.  
Shaun liked spending time with Rebecca. Before Lucy and Desmond came it had been just the two of them, and they were comfortable in each other's company, although romantically there really wasn't anything there. They were just friends, and relied on each other both while working and for companionship.

Back in the van, there were still a few hours to while away before the event so Shaun kept going with some database entries, although whether they were necessary was highly questionable. He finished Alexander Hamilton and was just getting started on the Marquis du Lafayette when William checked his watch and said, "It's time."

Shaun snapped his laptop shut and watched as Rebecca turned on the comm device connected to Juno's ear. There was nothing left to do but watch as Juno unsheathed Desmond's hidden blades, then sheathed them again before pulling her hood up and stepping out of the van. The door slid shut behind her and Shaun, Rebecca and William turned their attention to the screen that displayed what Juno was seeing.

Juno headed down the metro stairs and waited for a tram after Rebecca instructed her how to buy a ticket. It came after maybe six minutes and they watched as she got on and stood with the other passengers as the stations whipped by one by one. Then the crowded tram stopped at the stadium station, and Juno got off amid the flood of people, greeted immediately by 'wanted' posters with Desmond's face emblazoned on them.

"And now the hard part begins", said Rebecca grimly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope you guys like the chapter! It's probably the longest one I've written to date... please comment with some feedback!! :)


	3. we need to talk about desmond.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> desmond gets his shit together

Desmond was dimly aware of a distant collective roar and the feeling of his feet hitting the surface below him.

He couldn't think straight, it was like his mind was in some kind of mental bog. Mud weighing him down.  
His thoughts came slowly as he struggled to get a grasp on what was happening. He couldn't remember anything, couldn't really see anything either. To him his body felt sluggish and heavy, and even though he wasn't commanding it to he could feel it moving. Was he in the... what was it called?... Animus? Or worse, stuck in the inner workings, back to that place - Animus Island?

Although he felt a dull sense of panic at the thought, Desmond couldn't wake up fully. His mental processes were sluggish and he felt as though something big was very, very wrong, but he couldn't think what. Something felt off. It slowly occurred to him that he should be able to remember something that could hint at what was going on, so he cast his thoughts back to his most recent memory.  
Strangely enough, the image was a skewed view of a pasty, bespectacled guy with sandy hair and a horrified expression. His name eluded Desmond, but he had a strong sense that he should definitely know it. And before that... he got a faint taste of salt and vinegar.  
Baffled, Desmond tried to focus on the present. Floating in his field of vision was some kind of pole or crossbeam, surrounded on either side by lots of bright lights. As Desmond focused more on what he was seeing and hearing, the roaring sound grew louder, almost unbearable, and his vision grew brighter. Soon he was able to discern that he was walking on the pole, which was suspended above... holy shit.

He was creeping along a beam fifty feet above a roaring crowd of people.

This wouldn't have bothered him usually - his Assassin training had given him a certain tolerance for heights and precarious positions - but the fact that he felt as though he had just woken up and couldn't remember anything made him extremely uneasy in a dissociated kind of way.

He tried to stop, to crouch and try to think about what was going on for a minute, but he couldn't. His body simply didn't stop moving. Desmond tried repeatedly to force his feet to halt, but they kept falling one after the other on the slim metal beam. Panicked, Desmond gathered his feeble consciousness and flung himself sideways, attempting to regain some kind of control, but it was as though he was encased in a mental box that couldn't affect the rest of him. He didn't get it.  
He tried again, more desperately this time, and his sneakered feet appeared to falter slightly. Emboldened by this, Desmond tried to fling himself off the beam in an effort to affect the body he had no control over, and his body stumbled, momentarily slipping.

A familiar voice spoke right in his ear: _"Juno? You okay?"_  
Another one, also achingly familiar and very British: _"I told you she'd have trouble with sneaking around."_  
This only served to confuse Desmond, who was pretty sure he wasn't called 'Juno' or referred to as a she. His memory was patchy at best - he remembered his name, the Animus, the Assassins and the face of some glasses guy, but had no idea where he was, why he was there or why he couldn't control his own body. He considered the possibility that this was all a dream, but dismissed that idea on the grounds that:  
1\. However weird the dream was, his dream-self was never creeped out or self-aware,  
2\. His dreams always involved Assassins these days, and this was completely off-topic, and  
3\. This was wayy too vivid for anything that Desmond's imagination could come up with.

Things got even stranger when his own mouth moved, saying "I am fine, humans. A momentary slip." Desmond could feel the vibrations of the words in his chest, hear his own voice speaking, but the words were completely foreign to him. Desmond simply hadn't said what he'd just said.

 

So clearly, Desmond concluded, he was a passenger in his own body. Forced to watch as whatever events were going on unfolded in front of him. All this was so far beyond his understanding that he didn't quite believe it was real, and felt detached from what he was seeing and feeling.

He watched numbly as 'he' continued to sneak across the white metal pole as some sort of fight went on underneath him and the crowd cheered. He continued towards a small room and hopped into it off the beam, only to find that the walls were smeared with bloodstains. Then, to his astonishment, he found Daniel Cross there, holding what looked like a Temple power source and standing over a roomful of corpses.  
So he was on an excursion to find another power source, but why couldn't he move by himself? He watched as Cross fled and he gave chase, then proceeded to kill several guards and beat up Cross. Holy shit.  
Desmond felt his fingers close around the power source, then watched as he made his way out of some kind of stadium, where all the signs and posters were in what looked like Spanish. The voices continued to babble in his earpiece, but he couldn't focus on that because suddenly he was being chased by Abstergo guards.  
Then he was on the subway, hood up and power source safely in his pocket. His blood was pumping with adrenaline, but Desmond was so detached with confusion that he couldn't really feel it. It was all so surreal.

As he sat on the subway, some things slowly came back to him: the people he knew, what had happened before his blackout. He recalled that the voices in his ear were Rebecca and Shaun, his friends, and William, his father. He knew he'd been getting in the Animus when he'd passed out, but what had happened since?

Then he felt himself standing up and directed his attention towards what he was seeing. As he left the subway station and climbed the steps to the street he thought about seeing his friends and father, whether they would recognise that whoever was controlling him wasn't _him_.

He walked over to a white van and knocked on it, then Shaun opened the door and welcomed him inside.  
"Good work, Juno!" he said. "We didn't think you could actually do it."

Wait. Juno?  
Desmond had dismissed it when he'd heard the name in the stadium, but it seemed that they were referring to him as Juno now. Before he could piece things together he was distracted by the conversation:

"Great job", said Rebecca, taking the power source from him and peering at it. "Let's get back and hook this baby up."  
"Le's make haste", he heard himself say. "We cannot spend too much time away from the Temple."

 

As Rebecca drove them back to the Rio airport (from what Desmond could gather), he became aware of whatever that controlled him as as force, an entity. It was hard to describe, but it felt like he was being shoved into submission by an invisible hand. This quickly replaced the box idea as his visualisation for whatever was happening. The drive to the airport was a long one, and for the whole thing Desmond grappled with the mental force, trying to shove whatever was driving away from the wheel. It was exhausting, like trying to remember something he'd forgotten or imagining something he'd never seen. It took a lot of mental effort to strain against the crushing weight. And, eventually, it proved almost impossible.  
Almost.

They got to the airport and Juno - Desmond had figured out that it was Juno by now - was feeling lost and confused among the human systems of security. Desmond, with a huge mental strain, took advantage of this. He found a way through by using Juno's momentary weakness to switch places with her and take control again.

Suddenly his hands and head and eyes and feet were his own again.  
Desmond reached for the closest person - Shaun - and grabbed his arm. "Shaun!"  
"Wow", said Shaun drily, not turning around. "The great Juno condescends to call me by my name."  
"No - Shaun, it's me! Desmond!" he said desperately.

At this, Shaun glanced back and evidently saw something that made him stop.  
"... Desmond?"  
"Yes!" Desmond said happily. "I- I got my body back-"  
"How?" asked Shaun. "I mean - are you okay? Juno possessed-"  
"Yeah, I know, I've been awake for a while now... She's been in control though, it's a weird feeling -"  
"You were awake? Since when?"  
"I woke up in the stadium. I can see and hear normally, I'm just not controlling my body."  
"Holy shit. We have to get Juno out of there."  
Suddenly Juno began to push back inside him, as though the sound of her name had brought her back. He could feel his sense of self fading. With growing dread he added, "I don't have much time, I can only take control when she feels weak or sad, I think-"  
"I'll keep that in mind", said Shaun.  
He was losing control. Shaun and Desmond looked at each other desperately. In his last seconds of consciousness Desmond made an impulse decision.  
He did the one thing he was sure would buy him time.

He reached forward and kissed Shaun, cupping his face between his hands.  
Juno recoiled as though she had been burned, and Desmond drew back and said quickly: "Tell Rebecca and Dad about me - you have to figure out how to help me. Get Juno out. Don't let her beyond the Door if she's in control."  
Shaun looked as though he had been slapped, so Desmond continued - "And Shaun?"  
Hand to his lips, Shaun looked into his eyes.  
"How did you know it was me?" asked Desmond, but before Shaun could answer Juno had taken over again.

Desmond was shoved back into the recesses of his own mind, and could only watch as Juno pushed Shaun away and stalked off towards airport security.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope y'all like chapter 3... It was a long time coming and it's quite short because I'm literally out of motivation. Also I'm full of sin. As always, comment if you want to read more! thanks for reading <3

**Author's Note:**

> Uh... yeah.  
> The crisps thing, I know I probably should have said 'chips' but ugh i'm irish  
> also there's a dumb hamilton reference for anyone who can't not mentally sing 'common sense by thomas paine'
> 
> also dude if you liked this and want another chapter please comment bc 100% of my motivation comes from comments tbh  
> thanks for reading :))


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